post·script

The end of our trip brought a lot of reflection.  (as only sitting three hours in an airport can provide) The last two weeks have been incredible and we were incredibly fortunate.  There are a lot of things that can go wrong during a trip across the country and relatively speaking, compared to some of the things that could have happened, we were very lucky.  We never really hit horrible traffic, we never experienced mechanical failure and everyone remained on speaking terms the entire ride!  The trip was not without incident - we had swimmers ear that required a phone call to the doctor and drops properly administered. We got lost - if only for a few miles - in a not so nice section of St. Louis. The kids had their moments (as kids do) and parents got frustrated (as parents do).  There were moments but that is all that they were.  We planned as much as we could and we went into this adventure with our eyes wide open... well some of us did anyway...

On a whole and in summary the trip was exactly what we hoped it would be - a memorable family vacation that none of us will ever forget.